Evolution: sculpture

The weather - and the studio - have cooled off a bit, in time for me to finish a sculpture piece for 2010 edition of the Lowell exhibit, The Fabrication of Imagination.

Have you noticed how long ideas gestate? The mind is a womb of dreams. Half a dozen years ago, when my mother shipped me almost weekly boxes of clothes from her past, I took a lace prom dress and dumped it in the dye bath. I used the dress to make purses, but the bodice was too haunting to cut up. It went into the Idea pile.A few years later, a drawing I did became a major element in my printing: One edition of it, on an over-dyed dish towel, went into the Idea pile too, along with old aprons and frayed scarves. By then my mom was in assisted living.My work and my visits to mom take me repeatedly into nursing homes. The residents mostly are old women. I think about all the dreams inside of them, all the memories. They wear their pearls, they remember their children, their childhood. All those memories, invisible and yet present. "I'm still 22 in my mind," my grandmother puzzled, weeks before shes died.

My piece, "She was Married," is almost done. You can come see it in the ALL Arts Gallery in Lowell, August 7-29.

Gallery hours: Saturday 11-4 and Sunday 12-4
with extended hours for the Lowell Quilt Festival:

Thursday, August 12: 10-8
Friday August 13: 10-6
Saturday August 14: 10-5

Reception Saturday August 14: 2-4